Six pack: Furiosa (2024), Force of Nature (2024), No Escape (1994), The New Boy (2023), Mary and Max (2009), and Sweet As (2022)

 

There used to be a nerdy adage—at least until contrary instalments countered the point—that even-numbered Star Trek films were better than their odd-numbered counterparts. I wouldn’t be surprised if a similar adage emerges about the Mad Max films: while the obviously odd-numbered original was a trailblazer, it’s The Road Warrior and Fury Road that have commanded universal acclaim, while Beyond Thunderdome and Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (2024) have proven divisive.

There are striking moments—as expected in both a George Miller film and a Mad Max film—in Furiosa, and Miller remains the most idiosyncratic generator of sequels: Furiosa (technically a prequel) is his sixth, after a Babe sequel, a Happy Feet sequel, and three other Mad Max sequels, with none of these offshoots feeling the same. However, if you’d told me Furiosa was based on a five-part prequel comic book series, I’d believe you, based on its chapter structure and the narrative dead end it arrives at. As it stands, this Fury Road prequel screenplay was written before that film entered production, but Furiosa still can’t help but feel like a piece of consummately, at times beautifully made transmedia, with Chris Hemsworth, Anya Taylor-Joy, and Lachie Hulme all glorified cosplayers.

Another disappointing sequel, Force of Nature: The Dry 2 (2024), pales in comparison to both The Dry and windswept Sandra Bullock/Ben Affleck rom-com Forces of Nature. Continuing the screen adventures of Eric Bana’s federal agent Aaron Falk, adapted form the pages of Jane Harper’s thriller novels, this feels like a sequel in the same vein as a Rooster Cogburn or The French Connection II or They Call Me Mr. Tibbs: a bit of a step down from an acclaimed original, with no aspirations of spinning a saga beyond checking in with an iconic character/actor combo in a different milieu. In that respect, the film is somewhat refreshing, though I’m sure Bana and director Robert Connolly have loftier franchise ambitions. Bana’s characteristically solid and surrounded by a strong cast—Anna Torv as the dead, Jacqueline McKenzie as another detective, Deborah-Lee Furness and Richard Roxburgh as suspects—but the precision of the original—in its geography and its evocation of a struggling regional town—is replaced with the murkiness and muddiness of Force of Nature’s forest setting and cast of corporate retreaters, reducing its clarity of stakes and thematic resonance, at least for this viewer.

British director Martin Campbell is no auteur like George Miller, but he’s a proficient and skilled journeyman who's delivered two of the best Bond movies of the last three decades and a smattering of better than average actioners. His worst movies—Green Lantern and Beyond Borders—highlight his blind spots, namely cosmic CG spectaculars and issue-driven weepies. Fortunately, the Australian-shot No Escape (1994), also called Escape from Absolom, is entirely earthbound, all practical stunts and action and pyrotechnics, with nary a lady nor romance nor issue in sight. Forest-set like Force of Nature, dystopian like Furiosa, I’ll take this original—derivative as it is—over those two sequels. The film benefits from a solid ensemble—Lance Henriksen, Ernie Hudson, Stuart Wilson in his peak villain season—along with Ray Liotta in uncharacteristic heroic mode.

I’ll raise a big spoiler flag here for the next three titles. Read on if unfussed.

I’ve often given side eye to people who throw the baby out with the bathwater, cinematically speaking, when a film that otherwise engaged them for its entire runtime loses them at the end. However, I’ve fallen into that trap myself thrice recently with Australian titles. I'll concede that maybe I'm the problem, rather than the films themselves. Most notable was The New Boy (2023), a period-set film about a stolen Indigenous boy’s enculturation into a remote Catholic boys' home, where the finale felt like a cryptic, artful wash. Having said that, the quality I’ve appreciated most about Warwick Thornton’s previous films—his sensitivity for eliciting strong work from both young ingenues (Samson & Delilah) and veterans (Sweet Country)—was evident here in his work with newcomer Aswan Reid alongside veterans Cate Blanchett and Deborah Mailman, both penguin-suited as nuns. Mary and Max (2009), a black & white clay-mation black comedy about a young Australian girl and neurotic middle-aged New Yorker who become unlikely pen pals, ends on a pointedly unsatisfying note, though the visual style and eccentric dark wit that precedes it—delivered by once Oscar winner (Harvie Krumpet) and future Oscar nominee (Memoir of a Snail) Adam Elliot—remain accomplished and undeniable. Finally, Sweet As (2022) is a thoughtful and edifying portrait of an Indigenous teen from a broken home forging friendships and nurturing a gift for photography on a road trip, but its denouement is altogether too neat and uncomplicated.

B.K.